What The Snowman Learned About Love

Far and away in an unspecified frozen tundra at an unspecified time (for you see time did not matter much here), a snowman sat un-frightened yet alone in the middle of it all. To his left was a pile of downy white flakes, then to his right a pile of slightly less white but just as lovely white flakes. In front of him lay an endless, dreamy view of white, and behind him—well, he wasn’t sure what was behind him as he had never been able to fully turn around, but he assumed it wasn’t nearly as impressive as what he could see hence his not being blessed with the mobility to view it.

The snowman himself was painfully average, almost mediocre with his two stick arms and charcoal face. His one defining characteristic, the one thing he was most proud of, was his heart of ice. You see, his frosty little heart was indeed tiny but it sparkled ever so magnificently in the tundra’s blinding sun and then glittered so softly underneath the ever waning moon. The snowman had the utmost regard for this heart and the love he knew it held, careful not to just share it with any snowflake or beam of light that could possibly catch his fancy. No, as unique as each snowflake was they were everywhere and did not deserve the secret love he held. And the beams of sun, while warm, threatened to melt the snowman on a daily basis. How could he love something that would kill him? For it was common knowledge the sunbeam could not help but be what it was, unable to change for anything—even love. The snowman was saving his love for the bipolar polar bear.

The bipolar polar bear, BP to most, though most really only meant some since most did not survive encounters with BP, wandered past the snowman every day in a search for something. BP was never sure exactly what she was looking for, for she would constantly and rather violently switch moods and lose track of what she had been doing to begin with. The snowman, of course, knew none of this and was merely attracted to the strong physical appearance of the creature.

BP shone a blinding white, matching the snow exquisitely. But unlike the snow or the snowman, she was free to move in a large hypnotizing mass. Similar the snowman’s lone beautiful heart, BP too had one characteristic that made her stand out. Her eyes were two very different, very brilliant colors. The right was a strawberry red while the left a deep blackberry purple. The snowman felt it was quite queer to call it a blackberry when it was in reality not black, but nevertheless that was the shade of purple the eye reminded him of. Together they were striking, unsettling, unnerving- they would have left him breathless had he been able to breathe. They were easy to pick out in the blanket of snow and every time they drew near the snowman pleaded the beautiful creature would take notice of him.

On one confusing excursion undertaken by BP the snowman finally got his wish, for his glittering heart caught the attention of the bear. She drew closer to the snowman she had never once noticed before that point. The snowman stared into those curious eyes he was so drawn to, contemplating what to say to the bear once she arrived.

He saw her breath rising in puffs from her nose. He felt it on his face, which caused it to melt little by little. His eyes slid down roughly an inch each and his black smile, the second thing he was most proud of (which would have been the green scarf he once owned had a gust of wind not blown it away), became malformed as well, forming a blank expression. Wasn’t this what it would have been like had he given his love to the sunbeam?

The snowman saw BP’s eyes turn from curious, to puzzled, to ferocious; she had forgotten once again what she had been doing. She stood up on her hind legs, rearing back her arm and swiping the glittering heart from the snowman’s chest and forcing him to crumple down into a worthless pile. BP sniffed the heart as curiously as she had come, gnawed on it lightly, then plopped it in the freshly demolished heap the heart had come from before moving on.

The snowman’s smushed head rolled and rolled, then rolled some more before it finally settled down surprisingly not that far from his deconstructed body. He now had a full view of what had laid behind him and he was more than a smidgen surprised. There, only inches behind him, was the destroyed body of a lady snowman with a heart glittering just like his, the snowman’s missing scarf hanging from her outstretched stick arm that jutted out from the downy pile that once was her body. And, right next to his head, was hers. They now stared at each other, uninterested in anything else that happened to be near for the snowman had finally found what he had been searching for.